Midnight
by Evolette
Summary: A continuation of Breaking Dawn, the Cullens try to defeat the Volturi with the help of a new and powerful creature, who has her eyes set on Edward. Read to find out what she is!
1. A Stranger

For the first time in my life, I was happy. Genuinely happy. I've spent most of my life making sure others were happy, but now I can join those people in their happiness. I have Edward, I have Renesmee, and we're all going to live together, forever. It's almost too good to be true. "Careful Renesmee, don't trip!" I said as I watched her chase Jacob around. Edward chuckled and squeezed my hand. I knew it was silly to worry about her tripping; she wouldn't hurt herself much. But I couldn't help it; it was my maternal instinct. I never would have thought that I could love someone as much as I love Edward. But then Renesmee came along, and she and Edward mean everything to me. They're my world, and what makes me so happy is that I know that nothing can take them away from me. Not sickness, old age, or death. We'll be together forever.

As I watched Renesmee run around giggling and chasing Jacob, a bad thought hit me. I realized that there _was_ something that could take them away from me; something I couldn't protect them from. I tried to suppress the thought, but the name rang through my head, filling me with a sense of dread and fear. _The Volturi_. Our last encounter with them had been absolutely terrifying. And they hardly did anything. It's not what they did that scared me; it's what they could have done. Edward must have noticed my worried expression and immediately asked, "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"Yes, of course, why wouldn't I be?" I said, smiling, "I was just wondering…"

"Wondering what?" he asked quickly. The fact that he couldn't read my mind still bothered him, and he wanted to know what I was thinking constantly.

"Well…If the Volturi are so terrible, why hasn't anyone stood up to them before?" I asked. I had been pondering the question ever since Edward had told me that they were afraid to fight because of me.

"Because whoever tried to do that was immediately killed. People were terrified of them, and with good reason," he said.

"But you said that my ability could give us an advantage over them, wouldn't it?" I asked. He looked at me for a second, and I knew that he wanted to know what I was thinking.

"Yes, it would, but we're not going to go and fight them. We barely got out of the last one! Can't we just have some peace and quiet for once?" he said with a smile. I laughed and gave him a quick kiss. I saw the house through the trees and turned to Edward. "I'll race you," I said slyly.

"You're on!" he said. And we were off. I had been a vampire for a while, but the speed at which I could run without feeling tired still amazed me.

We got to the house at the exact same time. "So I guess we'll call it a tie?" Edward said.

"Nah, I think Bella won," Jacob said from behind us. He emerged from the forest with Renesmee running at his side. She ran towards me and I pulled her into my arms and lifted her above me. She giggled and laughed so wholeheartedly that everyone who heard it felt like laughing with her. "Fine, take her side!" Edward accused, laughing.

"Mom and Dad both win!" Renesmee said between giggles.

"Well thank you Renesmee, I think that settles it!" I laughed. We entered the house, and I put Renesmee down. She ran to Rosalie, who was sitting on the couch reading a magazine. She greeted her with a shower of hugs and kisses, resulting in more laughs and giggles. Esme emerged from the kitchen with a popsicle and Renesmee ran towards her squealing with delight.

As I watched my family all together, laughing and having fun, I felt happier than I had ever felt. But along with that happiness came that terrible sense of dread; a fear that all of this could be taken away in a moment. Even if the Volturi feared my abilities, I knew what they could do, and it scared me to death. I could only protect people from abilities that had to do with the mind; if they found a vampire who could incinerate anyone on contact, I wouldn't be much help. They were the only ones who could ruin my perfect world. I was brought out of my thoughts by a light touch on my shoulder; Edward. He took my hand and led me up the stairs to his room. He went to his CD player and turned it on. A happy, optimistic waltz filled the air with sound. "I think we should try dancing again," he said, and he smiled the smile that I loved.

"As you wish," I said. I felt more confident as a vampire; my human clumsiness was gone. AS he took me in his arms and started dancing, I followed his steps with ease. "See? You were born to dance," he said grinning.

"I was born to be a vampire," I said pointedly. He sighed, and pulled me in closer. As we kissed, my sharp senses picked up a smell and the sound of footsteps. I could tell Edward felt it too, because he stopped kissing me and looked up. It didn't smell like a human, or a vampire, or a werewolf. It smelled quite nice, actually. Not in the mouth-watering way; it smelled more like a flower or perfume. "What's--" I started, but Edward was out the door before I could finish. I followed him, and from the top of the staircase I saw Carlisle slowly open the door.

Standing outside was a girl about my age. She looked completely human. But she didn't smell human. Her scent was something I had never encountered before, and from the expressions of the others, I knew they had never felt it before either. She definitely wasn't a vampire; her eyes were not red or golden. They were a mix of crystal blue and silver, and they seemed to penetrate whatever they touched. She wasn't bothered by all the stares; she walked in as if she owned the place. After a few seconds, she looked at us impatiently. "Well stop gawking and say something!" she said in a flawless British accent. We were taken aback by this, but Carlisle managed to compose himself and comply with her wishes. "Who are you?"

"My name is Lydia. I've come here so you can help me. And you can save the introductions, I already know who you are and what you can do," she said, looking straight at me when she said that last part. I felt uncomfortable in her gaze; I felt like she could see straight to my soul. I looked away quickly. "What's she thinking?" I whispered.

"I don't know," he said bluntly, "Alice didn't see her coming either." That hadn't occurred to me before; could she be like me? Vampire powers had no effect on her? I looked at Jasper to see if he could feel anything. "He can't feel anything either," Edward said. I looked up at him, but he was just staring at Lydia with absolutely no expression on his face. "_Why_ are you here?" Rosalie spat at her. She looked at her, and I didn't even want to imagine the glare she must have given her to make her turn away so quickly. "I already said why I've come here," she said icily, "I need your help."

"With what?" Carlisle asked.

"A Revolution. I want to defeat those bloody Volturi, and I want you to take their place," she said with a sly grin. We were too shocked to speak. Part of me wanted to defeat them, but I couldn't imagine what made her think we had a chance. "I can do all the fighting if you're too scared," she said, "I just need you to take their place."

"What makes you think that _you_ can defeat them by yourself?" Emmet scoffed. She looked at him with that sly smile.

"I'll show you. But first, I have to explain to you what I am," she said. Her gaze drifted to Carlisle, and so did the rest of ours. For on his face was an expression of pure fear, awe, amazement, and dread. His eyes were wide and his face seemed paler than before, even if that was impossible. "Wait….Are you a--?" he started. But Lydia cut him off.

"Yes, Carlisle. I am."


	2. More Mythical Creatures

_Previously in Midnight:_

"_Wait….Are you a--?" he started. But Lydia cut him off._

_ "Yes, Carlisle. I am." _

Carlisle's mouth hung wide open as he grabbed Esme and pushed her behind him. He started backing away slowly, and I couldn't imagine what he was so afraid of. What creature could possibly be so terrifying to a vampire? And apart from being extremely intimidating, Lydia seemed like an average human, apart from her scent. But something told me she wasn't human… "Well what are you then? Could you explain to us _why_ Carlisle is so afraid of you? And how come you know what she is and we don't?" I said, turning to Carlisle. But he didn't answer; he just kept staring at Lydia, flinching whenever she moved. So I continued. "And what's all this about a revolution? And if you're so scary, why do you need us?"

"I already _told _you," she said, annoyed, "I need you to take their place! Honestly, can't you people pay attention to what I'm saying? I hate repeating myself!"

"Why do you want us to take their place?" I asked, ignoring her complaints.

"Because you're the most well-known 'vegetarian' family and if you took their place it would encourage more vampires to stop killing humans," she said indignantly, as if we should have known that. We were all in shocked silence, as we tried to absorb what was happening. I knew the peace wouldn't last. As we stood there, Lydia took a book out of a bag and climbed the stairs until she was right in front of me. "Here you go, _Bella_." She said my name like it was an insult. "This should explain a few things," she said, and with a sideways glance at Edward, went back down.

I looked at the book in my hands; it was red and quite big, but not very thick. And on the cover, written in cursive, was the title _Dragonology: The Complete Book of Dragons,_ along with a picture of a dragon. I sighed; I had been expecting some other mythical creature to pop up sometime. If there are vampires and werewolves in the world, why shouldn't there be dragons? When I looked up from the book, I noticed that everyone was looking at me expectantly. I didn't know what to say, so I just held up the book; the title was big enough for everyone's keen eyes to see. There was silence for a few moments; then Jacob bravely broke it. "Dragons? So you're a dragon?"

"Well not _exactly._ I'm a dracomancer," Lydia said.

"What's that?" Jacob asked.

"Use your _brain_ you mutt! 'Draco' means dragon, and 'mancer' is a suffix that means magician! And people say dogs are intelligent…" she scoffed. I was worried that her rudeness would cause one of them to get angry, but Jasper was there to help with emotional control.

"So what, you can like, turn into a dragon? What's so special about that?" Emmet laughed, but his joy was short-lived. Lydia ran to him and gave him an icy stare that would have scared anyone to death. Of course, he was already dead.

"Can _you_ turn into a dragon?" she asked coldly.

"N-n-no," he replied shakily. I had never seen Emmet scared, and I knew that there definitely was something weird about Lydia, and the whole dragon thing made sense. She seemed like the fire-breathing, puppy-eating type.

"Exactly. I can shape shift just like wolf boy and his puppy posse," she replied with one last glare. Then she motioned for me to come down the stairs. I obeyed, and Edward followed close behind me. She took the book from me and started flipping through its pages.

"This is a very good book, you know… It's quite accurate, apart from a few things, of course," she began. "I know you're all confused, but if you just _think_ for a second, it will all make sense. Let me help you out here; you know that werewolves protect humans and kill vampires, right? And that werewolves emerged to protect their fellow Native Americans against the 'Pale Faces'? But Native Americans live in America, right? There aren't any Native Americans in Africa, or Asia, or Europe. I mean, there might be now, but a long time ago there weren't any. Which means there weren't any werewolves to protect the humans in Africa and Eurasia, right? So the people living there evolved into dracomancers in order to protect themselves from vampires." I had never thought about how the people on other continents protected themselves, but I was starting to understand what Lydia was saying. It made sense…

"So you're saying that dragons protect the humans on other continents, right?" Alice asked.

"That's exactly what I'm saying. Each continent is protected by a different species of dragon, since the conditions are different. That's what this book is good for," Lydia said, and opened the book. On the first page was a map of the world, and each of the continents had a different name and dragon on it. The Americas weren't on the map.

"You see, the _draco africanus_ was the protector of Africa," Lydia said, pointing to the dragon on Africa, "It had two legs and big wings, and instead of breathing fire, it spat acid. And the Australian dracomancers, or the Aborigine dracomancers, turned into _draco marsupialis_, which didn't breathe or spit anything, but it was breathe or spit anything, but it was _very_ fast and had extremely sharp claws designed for ripping vampires apart." The dragon on Australia resembled a kangaroo, except more lizard-like and with tiny wings.

"Can it fly?" Esme asked eagerly. She seemed fascinated by all of this.

"It can, but not very well. And the dracomancers in Asia turned into this, the _draco orientalis_, or Asian lung as it was commonly called," she pointed to the dragon on Africa, which had no wings, and looked like a typical Chinese dragon. "They have no wings, they prefer to run. They were very nimble, and looked very serpentine. They couldn't breathe fire, but they had razor sharp fangs that could cut through anything, and they liked to wrap around their victims and crush them," she said enthusiastically. I was starting to feel a little uneasy; I was becoming scared to be a vampire. These dragons all sounded so frightening, and she hadn't gotten to the dragon on Europe yet; it looked like the dragon people imagined, four legs, big wings, and huge. And fire breathing.

"That brings us to our last dragon," Lydia said proudly, "_Draco occidentalis magnus._ The European dragon. They are the ones that look like the typical dragon you would imagine. It's the biggest of the dragon species and the most powerful. It's also the strongest flyer, because it has to be able to fly through the strong Atlantic winds, and it has to fly long distances, since it protects Russia as well as Europe. And it's also the only dragon that breathes fire." As she finished her explanation, we all just stood there staring at the book with our mouths open. It was a lot to take in.

"How come we've never heard of dragons before, if they protect people all over the world?" Rosalie spat, breaking the silence. She obviously didn't believe Lydia, or she was just angry that she had made Emmet look like a cowardly mouse.

"And how come I didn't see you coming, and Jasper can't feel your emotions, and Edward can't hear your thoughts?" Alice asked.

"Because we are undetectable to vampires, and werewolves. We have no scent, and your little powers don't work on us," she said. "And you've never heard of us before because those cowardly Volturi were so afraid of us that they annihilated us all!" she growled, "Just ask Carlisle. He knows what I'm talking about!" Everyone turned to Carlisle.

"It's true. Everything she said is true. Aro was completely terrified of dracomancers. He was so paranoid that, during the Middle Ages, he used his influence over the humans to convince them that dragons were evil and that they should be destroyed. That's actually why I left the Volturi; I thought it was cruel to kill off the dragons just because he was scared of them." We all stared at him in shock and disbelief.

"Why did you never tell us?" Esme said, caressing his arm.

"I didn't think there was a point. I thought they had all been killed," he said, looking up at Lydia.

"The dracomancers of Africa, Asia, and Australia were all killed by the very people they fought to protect. That was the cruel and cowardly part of Aro's plan; he knew that we couldn't hurt humans, so he had humans kill them off. There's not a single one left. But a few European dragons made it, since they were the strongest. Among them was my dad. And now, I want to take revenge on the Volturi for nearly wiping us out!" she said passionately.

"Hold on, I still don't believe you," Rosalie said. Lydia glared at her, but she just glared back.

"Don't worry, I'll show you. But we have to go outside. I can't fit in here," Lydia said, surveying the house skeptically.

"Bitch…" Emmet muttered under his breath. I couldn't help but smile. She was even worse than Rosalie after all. And that's saying something.

When we got outside, Lydia ran farther and told us to stay back. "I'm going to need some space," she said as she backed away. "You ready?" she asked. We all nodded. "All right then. Please don't faint," she said coldly. I bit back an insult and watched as the intimidating girl turned into a huge, frightening, silver-blue dragon.


End file.
